SALON

Monday, Mar 4, 2013 5:25 PM UTC

Ann Patchett on her moment of “Girls” fame: “I am so far out of it!”

The "Bel Canto" novelist doesn't even watch TV, but HBO's pack of hip urbanites (and their moms) have heard of her

By

Topics: ann patchett, Girls, Lena Dunham, HBO, hannah horvath, Books,

Ann Patchett on her moment of (Credit: HBO/AP/Melissa Ann Pinney)

Ann Patchett, call your agent.

The author of books including “Bel Canto” and “State of Wonder,” who also runs a Nashville bookstore, couldn’t seem farther removed from the world of HBO’s “Girls” — a show whose characters seem likely to read Sheila Heti or Vice magazine. Besides, as Patchett told Salon, she doesn’t watch TV.

And yet, last night’s episode name-checked the author, when the mother of Lena Dunham’s character announces that she’s having a wonderful time at an academic conference in New York.

“It has been such an awesome conference,” says Becky Ann Baker’s character, a prim middle-aged, upper-middle-class woman. “I never thought I’d meet so many other women who feel the same way I do about Ann Patchett.” The joke here, perhaps, is that Patchett is the sort of tasteful, excellent, high-mid-brow author for whom women like Hannah’s mother would, near-universally, feel a strong affinity.

Patchett is flattered. “I heard about the reference this morning from an old boyfriend who called me a ‘meme,’ and then I had to ask him what a ‘meme’ was,” Patchett told Salon via email. “It’s very nice to think that someone at the show would take the trouble to put me in the cultural loop when clearly I am so far out of it.”

“I was once an answer on ‘Jeopardy!’ and nobody got the question. [The question was worth $1,000 in the category Women Writers.] It’s a little like that, but for a younger, hipper crowd.”

“Girls,” here, shares a certain literary sensibility with forerunner “Sex and the City,” which focused, too, on a writer struggling (sort of) in New York: There were jokes about Michiko Kakutani (whose review prompts Carrie Bradshaw’s breakdown) and Joyce Carol Oates (who suffers an “unfortunate incident” at a ladies’ luncheon). Meanwhile, “Girls” has mentioned Patchett and lightly chided a generation of confessional memoirists with the insufferable “Tally Schifrin” character.

We’re counting down to the Salman Rushdie cameo.

Daniel D'Addario is a staff reporter for Salon's entertainment section. Follow him on Twitter @DPD_ More Daniel D'Addario.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 4 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: So long, Sookie Stackhouse

Recommendations